Good afternoon all, I don't know where the last week went.
Our First Minister is being a great deal more careful about easing restrictions than her counterpart in London, thank goodness. I believe from today more shops are allowed to open, but I have no need to go to them (though when the BBC interviewed people who had been queuing outside Primark (budget clothes store, very popular) in Glasgow since 5am, most said they were there for essentials like t-shirts and underwear, and I can understand that as all of mine in both categories are starting to fall apart...luckily I am with Mary Beard in not caring two hoots.
We are now allowed to meet up with a friend outside so I have been on walks with three different local friends, all of whom I have known since the children were small. It really lifts the spirits to chat with friends, even when you are not allowed to end the walk with the usual coffee stop. One of my friends is a consultant at the hospital. She told me that there have not been too many cases up here, and that the hospital, though busy, was never in danger of being overwhelmed. She is a psychiatrist specialising in geriatrics, and only two of the patients on her ward contracted the virus, both of whom recovered despite being 80+, suffering from severe dementia, and in one case also lung cancer. You just cannot tell with this thing.
Next weekend we are planning to go to Edinburgh for the day to see the daughters and also my mother (separately). I need to collect some things from the house, so we will see the girls then. My mother's sheltered housing requires any visitor to be booked in, and then to meet only outside, socially distanced. I completely understand that, I just hope it doesn't rain! And oh my goodness, what am I going to wear to enter the Big City?
Ginny - I so agree about allowing ourselves little treats. We have been doing everything by the book, only going out for groceries or walks, quarantining our post, washing our hands all the time, etc, so a little indulgence is hardly a crime. Also I justify it by reminding myself that we would normally go out for our coffee and cake once or twice every weekend, and I might well meet a friend during the week for lunch, and we are doing none of these things, so we are saving maybe £50 a week anyway. So I have bought the occasional book, plus my new birdbath (in which so far no bird has bathed, the ungrateful wretches...) and some slightly expensive (we are talking £5 here, not Chanel no.5) handcream. If a subscription to a TV channel floats your boat, then why not?
I am loving
A Place to Call Home - luckily I can watch it for free, but if I couldn't I think I would subscribe for that.
Barb - you mentioned Dervla Murphy. My Irish friends live outside Dungarvan, just a few miles from Lismore where Dervla has lived all her life. When Marian (my friend) and I were in our early 20s we were almost obsessed with her books - the first one is called
Full Tilt, and it is about riding a bike from Lismore to India, which she did alone and with no special equipment (including travelling through Afghanistan when it was still almost medieval, though probably safer than it is today.) She is an astoundingly intrepid woman. Marian was also very adventurous in her day, travelled extensively alone and spent some months in Ethiopia, nursing with Concern. I was the complete opposite and was happy just to read about this sort of stuff. We devoured the books, then one Christmas time, as we were driving through Lismore, we saw the woman herself. She is famously reclusive and does not welcome intrusion, so we just drove round the village three times to make sure it was her, then off we went. We were beyond thrilled. In 1968 Dervla decided to have a child. She had no intention whatsoever of marrying anyone, and if my memory is correct, she found a good male friend, an Irish Times journalist, to father the baby. She later took her daughter on many intrepid expeditions - what a childhood! She is now 88 and still lives alone in Lismore.
This past week I have read Catherine Alliott's
A Cornish Summer, which is pure escapism, well written, and very enjoyable. I do like these kinds of things once in a while, provided the writing is good - I agree with all of everyone's comments (which I have just gone back and read through) re poorly edited books, sloppy grammar, etc. The mess that was GM Malliet's
In Prior's Wood exemplified all of that, and I must nervously admit to wanting to take a red pencil to much of Louise Penny's more recent output, and even (whisper it low) JKR's Harry Potter books. Alliott's writing is crisp and clear, everything makes sense, no plot holes, completely convincing dialogue. The characters are people I would probably loathe in real life - posh, rich, entitled - but Alliott digs into all of their problems while telling a proper story.
I also read
Fell Farm Holiday by Marjorie Lloyd. I had picked this up in a charity shop ages ago - it is a children's book from 1951, about the Browne family's summer in the Lake District. The parents are handily stuck in India, so the children are parked on a local farmer and his wife (they have previously spent many family holidays at this farm.) The farmers have no children and seem more than happy to put up with 5 children who all eat like horses. The book is narrated by each of the four older children in turn. These four (the oldest is 15) go off hill walking all day, and even camping for three nights on top of some of the highest peaks in the area (this expedition includes having to get down a mountain in thick mist and horizontal rain, with no proper equipment.) The two oldest (twins,
of course) are also taken rock climbing by another local farmer, with no safety gear, no hard hats, no harnesses and simply a rope between them. They have no training and seem to survive on 2 minutes' instruction from the man re how to belay.
The youngest child - aged 8 - is not included but is 'allowed' to take a bus, entirely alone, to the others' 'base camp' to bring along things they have forgotten. I know that children were probably given a great deal more freedom in those days, but the whole thing was very
Famous Five - oldest boy takes charge, oldest girl is in charge of provisions and cooking...but without anything really happening. At one point the youngest, Sally, tells the others that she has had 'an amazing adventure' while they are away - aha, I thought, at last a proper story (though one dreads to think what adventure an 8 year old alone on a bus might have had...) - but the older children never ask her about it, so we too never hear another word! What's more, the family is perfect in every way, no-one ever argues with anyone else, they are all up for anything, no-one ever complains, and the oldest's favourite phrase is 'As a family.. ' - eg '
As a family we are pretty good at getting up early'...I felt it was a poor imitation of Enid Blyton (and that's saying something). The most interesting thing about it for me was that all of the places mentioned are real, and the farm (now apparently holiday cottages) is just a few yards from the site of a chalet my parents-in-law owned for many years at Skelwith Bridge.
I myself did try to take a very hands-off approach to parenting with my own children, probably because my mother was extremely cautious and over-protective, and still wanted to know where I was and when I was coming back when I was in my 20s. I used to love staying with a family friend in Cornwall because she was so much more
laissez-faire and didn't worry if I went off for long walks and didn't come back for lunch - but this was at the age of 16 or 17, and I certainly would not have been allowed to stay out all night or climb mountains!
However, I then looked at some reviews on Goodreads, and it was fascinating to see that so many people remembered this book and its sequels from their own childhoods, and had found tremendous pleasure in re-reading them as adults. This started me thinking about how our memories and nostalgia colour our reading. I myself adored
The Family From One End Street books so much as a child - would I still think they were wonderful? When I go down to Edinburgh I will find them and see. I do recall trying to read some Malcolm Savill books to my own children and realising that they were truly dreadful - but as a child I read and re-read them.
I'm now reading one of Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus novels -
Hide and Seek - that my son sent to me. I've got a feeling I've read it before, but I have no idea what happened (his plots are always quite complicated) and it's fun recognising all of the locations in Edinburgh.
Bellamarie - to me those little birds look like sparrows - no? The herons have been out on the river most days when I have walked there, and I've seen the red kites above the trees towards Drumoak frequently of late.
I'll stop now. We were expecting thunder and lightening, which so far have not arrived. I wonder if I am safe to go for a walk? (Un)helpful husband said 'oh just take an umbrella' (with a nice metal spike on the end...)
Rosemary
